Duplicate Content - Video
-
I recently noticed a drop in rankings for my site shortly after the new algorithm update. I'm not sure exactly why rankings went down, but would like to know if it has to do with having videos on our site that do not belong to us.
We have a few videos on product pages that the manufacturer of the product had created. I was wondering if Google maybe thinks we are maliciously stealing these videos or something and penalizing us for it. And if stuff like this has anything to do with the recent algorithm update.
We make our own videos, but some of our manufacturer's videos are just better... and they work with us and are glad for us to have their videos listed.
Thanks in advance
-
I wold like to agree with Syed, plus add a little to the video marketing side of your site. I am new to SEOMOZ, and although I have many things to work on and learn, video marketing, even within my site, has been a major factor for traffic. Using videos from the manufacturer is fine, and I believe the other three comments are correct, this should really have nothing to do with a drop in rank or traffic. I do suggest however, to continue to put your own original videos on your site...trust me, your own personal view and brand on things plays a major role for not only trust from the search engines, but what we should really be concerned with, trust from prospective clients and or purchasers of our products and services.
It has amazed me at how more people preferred my own take of a particular product or service than that of the creator of the product I was promoting. I tried it both ways several times and always noticed a higher percentage in the conversion rate than that of the other...just the facts I have seen and still do. The hardest part about this whole venture is getting it down to a fine art. While the manufacturer's videos may seem more professional than your own, don't worry, practice makes perfect. Besides, when it comes to video, people really are attracted to other "real" people and how they feel about a specific product or service... Thanks-
-
HIGHLY unlikely that your website got pandalized due to "duplicate video" content hosted on your server.
If the videos were embeds (youtube, etc) and the creator of the video has higher authority website and has the videos embedded too, then yes, your site might throw off 'thin' content trait but even then it shouldn't be enough to attract the Panda to its door.
If I were you, I'd look at all the pages for the text content they have and if any are duplicates or close to duplicates, and if I find any I would have original content written for each . I would also look the title and meta tags and check for duplicates also analyze see the # of backlinks to all the pages.If 1% of your websites pages have all the backlinks and rest have no links or social activity at all, that could throw off a thin content profile as well. I would also get lot of social signals (retweets, etc) - get those pages on Twitter and other social networks including Digg, Stumbleupon, etc to show Google that these pages don't simply exist for the sake of it but they are shared (liked) by people as well.
Take a look at other metrics as well - time on site, bounce rate, etc as they are getting more important. -
the google bot cannot watch and understand videos so just alter the filename and title and description - look at youtube for example
-
I doubt the drop is a result of the videos. As far as Panda is concerned, I would focus my rehabilitation efforts on:
- Fixing Duplicate Content (ESPECIALLY on your own website! get well acquainted with how to use rel="canonical")
- Cleaning Up Your Site (focus on making a cleaner experience for your visitors and simpler code for the search engines)
- Fix Your Technical Issues (fix any problems that SEOmoz is telling you about, any crawl errors in Google Webmaster Tools, any page speed problems in Google's Online Page Speed Tool, and potentially any HTML validation problems from W3C)
- Content, Content, Content (create more original content and refresh your evergreen content)
Be warned that there haven't been a ton of verifiable Panda recoveries to date, which may be in part due to the fact that (as Matt Cutts verified) Google isn't updating the "Panda factor" very often. Recovery may take weeks to months. The best article available on the subject, in my opinion, came out last week: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/40851/10-tips-for-beating-google-panda
-
No
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
2 Domains, 1 Brand - Content Marketing Strategy Question
I have a customer that has two separate locations for the same business on two different URLs (both connected via Landing Page). I cannot change this. They are in the powersports industry (snowmobiles, ATVs, motorcycles, dirt bikes, etc). The locations are about 10 miles from one another, essentially sell the same brands & products (there are 1 or 2 exceptions), have the same target audience (local & from out-of-state), and have the same goals. They currently rank #1 and #2 for their industry in their area. They now want a content marketing strategy. I face limitations with the CMS (no blog abilities and technical issues that are out of my control), and content marketing can really only consist of custom graphics & custom page creation. Typically, custom pages are utilized by creating Brand Pages describing the major brands to built out authority in those categories, and then try to branch out from there to create individual product-category pages with more unique content to answer more of a question based on the intent. I am very concerned about creating content that will be too similar between the two locations and will thus compete with the other location, so I am thinking I should devise a completely different strategy for 1 location over the other. Is that a good idea? I think with the smaller location, I choose the typical route of creating brand pages, product pages, etc, and then with the bigger location, try to focus on unique content such as buyer's guide, local SEO ideas about the area, FAQs, testimonials, etc. Thoughts/ideas?
Content Development | | Crichardson19900 -
Why should I avoid publishing off-topic content on my website?
As a fun project, my team wanted to build a mini-food blog based off the lunches we make here at our office -- but we're a software company and, topically, our product has nothing to do with food. Therefore, I suggested that we not publish this content on our website + create a Medium publication instead (this would also help us avoid the headache of creating an entirely new section of our website / potential 404 issues from non-technical editors / etc.) However, I struggled to articulate _why _it's a best practice to only publish relevant content on your website. Is it to help search engines understand what your website is about as an entity? Spam signals?
Content Development | | AsanaOps0 -
Writing <200 word pieces of content in a 7.5 hour day
My employer has a content writer who is currently working on writing unique descriptions for many pages, on the order of around 150-200 words per piece of content. A recurring theme in this content is to write a list of features such as "it does X, X, X, X, X and X", which can sometimes happen a couple of times during the content and takes up a decent chunk of wording. This content does not require in-depth research over and above reading the about us page of some sites and looking at what services they provide, as well as some quick details like their payment and delivery methods etc. As well as that the writer also writes the Meta Description and then uploads these to a CMS. There are no other tasks. Considering the writer is doing this 5 days a week, 7.5 hours a day, and isn't getting paid a poor or trainee-type wage, what would you say would be an acceptable amount to achieve on the average day? The current average works out to around, or slightly less than 8 of these pieces of content each day. Thoughts?
Content Development | | crystal.fde1 -
A good content calendar/organizer suggestion?
Does anyone have a good content calendar/organizer/software/etc to help plan delivering and pushing out content? I haven't ever used anything other than an actual calendar, and that doesn't seem to help all that much. Is there anything better out there? Any suggestions would be fantastic! Much appreciated, Ruben
Content Development | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Is paid content a good or bad thing
Hi, over the past couple of years we have turned down thousands of request from companies to have paid editorial on our sites, I have always turned this down but i have seen some sites accept this and would like to know your stance on this. In newspapers and magazines which i have worked in both, they have paid editorial all the time, so i am just wondering what google thinks of paid editorial. look forward to hearing your thoughts
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Best way to resolve duplicate content issue?
Not sure about what to do about this - I have a client who has a ton of pages (around 1200) which are all City specific pages, for long-tail search. These are all written with paragraphs in the format such as: Order to [City] today. So every page has essentially the same content. The site also only has 1562 pages, so with 1200 of them being City-specific same-content pages, that can't be good. However the problem is that these pages still rank very well (usually Position 1 or 2) for the terms they're targeting, and bring in enough traffic and revenue to justify their purpose. We also have Country specific pages, and these are all with unique content, rather than the scripted content on the City pages. So for example, for Italy we might have: Italy Page (Unique Content) Rome (Duplicate Content) Milan (Duplicate Content) Venice (Duplicate Content) etc. (Duplicate Content) For a low traffic country (Austria), we tried to 301 the City pages to the Country page, but that only resulted in us seeing a drop in search results for the city keywords, from (usually) Position 1 to more like Page 3 or 4, so quite a drop. So, without writing 1200 pages worth of unique content, what would your advice be?
Content Development | | TME_Digital0 -
Best strategy for content/articles. Individual pages or blog posts?
Hi all, Whilst adding content to one of my sites quite often I'm left deciding whether I should create an individual webpage for the content, or write it up as another blog post. More often I write it up as a static page so it fits in with the rest of my website more 'directly'. However I'm wondering if I'm missing out here as obviously I'm not taking advantage of the benefits of a blog, RSS, Tag Cloud, etc etc... Just wondering if others encounter the same quandary?
Content Development | | davebrown19750 -
WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF PRODUCING CONTENT
A lot of SEO is focusing on content these days and having unique blogs and articles. I understand how this would be great for a search engine, but doesn't that leave out businesses that are not there to make content but only want to advertise their services?
Content Development | | musillawfirm0